When the war is mentioned it is with pride at the men fighting for "freedom". That seemed to me an odd way to refer to a civil war, which is why I was puzzled.
Freedom for slaves, I assume (you've probably realised that since).
... Another term for unleavened biscuits would be hardtack but I think this term is used worldwide.
I've read it but never known what it meant. Also, to our usage 'unleavened biscuit' doesn't make sense. So what do they both actually mean?
@Nick Tamen we have transparent jugs, either pyrex or plastic with fluid measures up the side of them, but that's so you can measure liquids in them by holding the jug up to the light.
I don't think I've ever heard of a stick of butter.
The notion that a decently equipped kitchen could not have any sort of scales in it is fairly odd here. Even reluctant and incompetent cooks like me argue at an almost doctrinal level about whether scales should be the sort that have one sprung pan and a dial , the sort with balancing pans and weights, or these days the snazzy electronic sort.
What do you mean 'many of us' use measuring cups, KarlLB? I've never seen one, although I've got a Pyrex measuring jug for liquids.
I know realise, though why a US social media contact tells me that she finds British recipes hard to follow. She seems to follow a Geordie fella's You Tube videos of how to make Toad In The Hole (which I've not eaten since the 1970s) and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding which is not as common as it used to be ...
What do you mean 'many of us' use measuring cups, KarlLB? I've never seen one, although I've got a Pyrex measuring jug for liquids.
I know realise, though why a US social media contact tells me that she finds British recipes hard to follow. She seems to follow a Geordie fella's You Tube videos of how to make Toad In The Hole (which I've not eaten since the 1970s) and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding which is not as common as it used to be ...
You've not had a Toad in the Hole for decades? What's wrong with you man?
Regards: Little Women, the father is a pastor who has gone off to minister to the soldiers in the American Civil War. When he comes back it is obvious he suffers from what we now know as PTSD.
Really? That's something else I missed completely. Either that or it was left out of the abridged version I seem to be reading.
@Nick Tamen we have transparent jugs, either pyrex or plastic with fluid measures up the side of them, but that's so you can measure liquids in them by holding the jug up to the light.
Sure, they’d be used for that here, too, but they also might be used for dry ingredients if no leveling is required. Otherwise, we have the separate measuring cups.
I don't think I've ever heard of a stick of butter.
That’s how butter is usually sold here. Most packages of butter contain four sticks (i.e., one pound).
The notion that a decently equipped kitchen could not have any sort of scales in it is fairly odd here. Even reluctant and incompetent cooks like me argue at an almost doctrinal level about whether scales should be the sort that have one sprung pan and a dial , the sort with balancing pans and weights, or these days the snazzy electronic sort.
I get that. But since recipes here typically don’t use weight except in the case of meat or canned/packaged ingredients (which come from the store with weight noted on them), most cooks don’t have that much need for them, except as noted the really serious bakers or chef-types.
I just took a quick survey of our cookbook shelves. Out of 75+ cookbooks, I’m aware that one (the one with my favorite pancake and waffle batter recipes) uses weight for dry goods in baking, but then goes on to give the equivalent in volume for those ingredients, apparently on the assumption that many cooks using the book won’t have scales, despite the author’s encouragement to get some. All the others I cook or bake out of use volume for dry ingredients, and I’m willing to bet the rest do, too. Ditto all the family and other recipes we’ve gathered. That’s just how it’s done here.*
And that’s the problem here with moving to weight instead of volume for those ingredients. Because “we’ve always done it this way,” all the recipes we have, in cookbooks or otherwise, would have to be “translated.”
* I’ve read that it’s because when Fannie Farmer wrote The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896), which became one of the most influential cookbooks in the US (it’s among the 75+ on our shelves), the scales available to most home cooks were generally so inaccurate that Farmer thought volume measurements were more precise and reliable for the average cook. So, that’s what she used in her cookbook, and as a result that’s what became the standard here.
I haven't made a study, and I'm definitely not a serious cook, but I don't think I've seen scales in a UK kitchen since I was a child. A pyrex measuring jug, on the other hand, is essential.
I haven't made a study, and I'm definitely not a serious cook, but I don't think I've seen scales in a UK kitchen since I was a child. A pyrex measuring jug, on the other hand, is essential.
How do you weigh ingredients for recipes? We use scales for things as basic as pastry.
I haven't made a study, and I'm definitely not a serious cook, but I don't think I've seen scales in a UK kitchen since I was a child. A pyrex measuring jug, on the other hand, is essential.
How do you weigh ingredients for recipes? We use scales for things as basic as pastry.
I have a metal cup set 1, 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4, and have used them for years, as easier to use teaching children to cook than scales, which I also have. School cookery lessons in the UK we had dry measuring cones (link) in the school kitchen, and my plastic measuring jug gives dry measures too.
Interesting, I’ve never come across cooking by volume in the UK, although I knew that’s how it was done in the US. I thought every kitchen (over here in UK, anyway) would have scales as an absolute basic. I’m another who doesn’t know how you would cook by weight without them.
And I’m another who is astonished that Gamma Gamaliel has not had toad in the hole for years! We have some sausages in the freezer and we’re discussing the possibility of having it at some stage next week. Oh and roast beef and yorkshire pud is pretty much a standard in the MMM kitchen too. Or pork, lamb or chicken. Although sadly these days, we tend only to have either yorkshire pud or roast potatoes, having both only on special occasions.
Putting ingredients in the bread maker without weighing them to nicety is a recipe for disaster. Other than that, I seldom use the scales being more of a That Looks Like Enough sort of cook.
I have a set of measuring spoons get frequent use - tbsp and tsp turn up in most recipes. Measuring jug is only ever for liquids.
I've heard of sailors eating (hard) tack, as well as tacking a boat. Exactly what literary source I have for that I don't remember.
EDIT: Part of me wants to say Captain Haddock in Tintin, but that could be way off.
I think that is what is referred to in novels like Hornblower, as "ship's biscuit". Generally full of weevils after it had been stored in the hold for maybe several years! I seem to remember a reference to the midshipmen knocking them on the table to make the weevils drop out, then using the weevils to bait traps for the rats (which they would then eat!)
FYI: It is possible to do US-style measuring with just *one* measuring cup and a set of measuring spoons. That's what I grew up with. Regular teaspoons and tablespoons can also serve as measuring spoons--you just have to be a little careful, and pay attention to what you're doing.
I've heard of sailors eating (hard) tack, as well as tacking a boat. Exactly what literary source I have for that I don't remember.
EDIT: Part of me wants to say Captain Haddock in Tintin, but that could be way off.
I think that is what is referred to in novels like Hornblower, as "ship's biscuit". Generally full of weevils after it had been stored in the hold for maybe several years! I seem to remember a reference to the midshipmen knocking them on the table to make the weevils drop out, then using the weevils to bait traps for the rats (which they would then eat!)
Even I make Toad in the Hole occasionally - it's one of the few things that works dairy and gluten free (GF sausages and flour, unsweetened soya milk, eggs) - and to irritate you all, I'll often measure the flour using a cup, because 4oz of flour is roughly a cup (and I'll make a half amount for two of us.)
I had no idea the name of sausages floating in batter was called toad in a hole. About 45 years ago a bad cook at a summer camp where I worked made it and another which was sauerkraut with sausages similarly floating in it. Horrible both. I thought both were Ukrainian foods. Who knew.
I tell a lie, I had Toad in The Hole at my mother in law's during the '90s. Unlike 'our Mam' and my late wife she was a terrible cook.
I do bangers and mash but generally the staples chez Gamaliel are stir fries, curries, risottos, paella and French style casseroles. I do Welsh stuff occasionally.
I have a set of measuring cups and a set of measuring spoons. The spoons, in particular, are very useful for measuring “half a teaspoon “ and such like.
Regarding the use of cups, could you use any cup for a particular recipe? American recipes would seem to work on proportions of ingredients. Mind, I have a Winnie the Pooh cookbook which measures things in yoghurt pots.
When trying a new recipe I carefully measure ingredients, but most of the things I cook are known so well that I'm able to throw them together without any measuring or much thought at all. As my late mother would say, she made them up out of her own head. She was a brilliant cook.
Sure, but that only comes with practice. I don't bother measuring for familiar recipes.
I'm surprised at those who say they don't use scales. I go 'by eye' mostly but have always had a set of scales of one form or other and always use them on first time recipes. I do have a repertoire of stuff that seems to do itself without my having to think too hard, but I do like to try new things. Mainly I improvise with bits and bobs that are left over.
When I learned baking at home (school Dom Sci had scales), I used a tablespoon to measure ingredients. A rounded tbsp of flour was an ounce. Sugar would have been less rounded to be an ounce. Butter came in blocks which could be measured off as slabs - many wrappers were marked with ounce divisions. It could easily be done by eye. We were using volume, just with different measuring devices and calling what we were measuring by weight. I'm pretty sure it was general for home cooks to count the spoons into the bowl. Except for Victoria sponge where it was necessary to put the eggs (in shell) on one side of the scales and balance the flour and sugar on the other side.
At school we had a set of measuring jugs - we even had gills (1/4 of a pint).
We call "cobbler' as in apple cobbler, "apple crisp".
Re scales, I did get one given me, which I used for a while to measure out a scant 750g of dough to make identical loaves of bread. These are roughly 1.5 lb loaves. The battery went some years ago and I've not replaced.
After writing that, do you say "scant" when measuring, it means "up to, but not over".
When I learned baking at home (school Dom Sci had scales), I used a tablespoon to measure ingredients. A rounded tbsp of flour was an ounce. Sugar would have been less rounded to be an ounce. Butter came in blocks which could be measured off as slabs - many wrappers were marked with ounce divisions. It could easily be done by eye. We were using volume, just with different measuring devices and calling what we were measuring by weight. I'm pretty sure it was general for home cooks to count the spoons into the bowl. Except for Victoria sponge where it was necessary to put the eggs (in shell) on one side of the scales and balance the flour and sugar on the other side.
At school we had a set of measuring jugs - we even had gills (1/4 of a pint).
Ah, yes, I’d forgotten doing all that, memories flooding back!
Re scales, I did get one given me, which I used for a while to measure out a scant 750g of dough to make identical loaves of bread. These are roughly 1.5 lb loaves. The battery went some years ago and I've not replaced.
After writing that, do you say "scant" when measuring, it means "up to, but not over".
Not here. “Scant” used in that way here would mean “not quite or just under 750g,” the general meaning of “scant” here being “not enough or insufficient.”
When I hear "jug" I think of a plastic container that has a cap on it that is usually used to contain milk. You can get them in either a gallon or half-gallon size. It is also a slang term used for female mammary anatomy. "She has a good set of jugs."
This is the first time I have ever heard a measuring cup referred to as a jug. I continue to learn quite a bit on this thread.
Also, "jug" can be used to refer to stealing or finessing.
When I hear "jug" I think of a plastic container that has a cap on it that is usually used to contain milk.
I think primarily of a pottery or glass container with a small mouth that can be stoppered with a cork, and a plastic milk container secondarily because it resembles a pottery or glass jug.
A jug to me (and most Brits I imagine) is neither of the above and definitely doesn't have a stopper. It is an open topped container made of glass pottery or plastic, with a handle on one side and a lip on the opposite side, used to pour out liquids...I have a feeling that in the USA it might be called a pitcher.
We don't have a special name for plastic milk containers...just 'milk container'.
A jug is like a pitcher per @Gracious Rebel , but tends to be smaller. Your first picture @Nick Tamen wouldn't load for me, your second one is a growler.
Sorry about the first picture, NP. Try this, which is similar.
The second picture is what around here would be associated with moonshine, though it could be used for other things as well.
Here, growler is only used with regard to beer, specifically beer from craft breweries and bottle shops. A growler is a specific kind of glass jug for beer, which can be taken back to the brewery and refilled.
Formerly wealthy, Robert helped friends who could not repay a debt, resulting in his family's genteel poverty. A scholar and a minister, he served as a chaplain in the Union Army during the Civil War and was wounded in December 1862. His wife and daughters loved him very much, and missed him while he was away from home.
Nick's jug, I realise, is the sort used to make music, which one couldn't do with British jugs - except by hitting them, not blowing over the mouth.
I searched images of jugs, which brought up both sorts, but also a few intermediate objects, which could be used for pouring out through a lip, as in British jugs, but with a narrowing of the top towards a spout - not narrow enought for a normal stopper, or to blow across. Interesting.
Sorry about the first picture, NP. Try this, which is similar.
The second picture is what around here would be associated with moonshine, though it could be used for other things as well.
Here, growler is only used with regard to beer, specifically beer from craft breweries and bottle shops. A growler is a specific kind of glass jug for beer, which can be taken back to the brewery and refilled.
In UK English those would be called flagons.
Occasionally a flagon may have a handle and lip, in which case they have a hinged lid.
As for a growler, I understand that to refer to a small iceberg, such as holed the SS Titanic.
are none of you fans of the excellent "something rhymes with purple" podcast, with Susie Dent (OED and Countdown dictionary corner) and Giles Brandreth?
30 minutes of chat weekly about the use and origins of words (usually in British English), I really recommend it (though warning, they don't hold back in discussions of rude words also).
If you were, you might be "schoolboy sniggering" like me about all these mentions of growlers.
Comments
@Nick Tamen we have transparent jugs, either pyrex or plastic with fluid measures up the side of them, but that's so you can measure liquids in them by holding the jug up to the light.
I don't think I've ever heard of a stick of butter.
The notion that a decently equipped kitchen could not have any sort of scales in it is fairly odd here. Even reluctant and incompetent cooks like me argue at an almost doctrinal level about whether scales should be the sort that have one sprung pan and a dial , the sort with balancing pans and weights, or these days the snazzy electronic sort.
I know realise, though why a US social media contact tells me that she finds British recipes hard to follow. She seems to follow a Geordie fella's You Tube videos of how to make Toad In The Hole (which I've not eaten since the 1970s) and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding which is not as common as it used to be ...
You've not had a Toad in the Hole for decades? What's wrong with you man?
Really? That's something else I missed completely. Either that or it was left out of the abridged version I seem to be reading.
That’s how butter is usually sold here. Most packages of butter contain four sticks (i.e., one pound).
I get that. But since recipes here typically don’t use weight except in the case of meat or canned/packaged ingredients (which come from the store with weight noted on them), most cooks don’t have that much need for them, except as noted the really serious bakers or chef-types.
I just took a quick survey of our cookbook shelves. Out of 75+ cookbooks, I’m aware that one (the one with my favorite pancake and waffle batter recipes) uses weight for dry goods in baking, but then goes on to give the equivalent in volume for those ingredients, apparently on the assumption that many cooks using the book won’t have scales, despite the author’s encouragement to get some. All the others I cook or bake out of use volume for dry ingredients, and I’m willing to bet the rest do, too. Ditto all the family and other recipes we’ve gathered. That’s just how it’s done here.*
And that’s the problem here with moving to weight instead of volume for those ingredients. Because “we’ve always done it this way,” all the recipes we have, in cookbooks or otherwise, would have to be “translated.”
* I’ve read that it’s because when Fannie Farmer wrote The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896), which became one of the most influential cookbooks in the US (it’s among the 75+ on our shelves), the scales available to most home cooks were generally so inaccurate that Farmer thought volume measurements were more precise and reliable for the average cook. So, that’s what she used in her cookbook, and as a result that’s what became the standard here.
How do you weigh ingredients for recipes? We use scales for things as basic as pastry.
I use them for portions as well.
And I’m another who is astonished that Gamma Gamaliel has not had toad in the hole for years! We have some sausages in the freezer and we’re discussing the possibility of having it at some stage next week. Oh and roast beef and yorkshire pud is pretty much a standard in the MMM kitchen too. Or pork, lamb or chicken. Although sadly these days, we tend only to have either yorkshire pud or roast potatoes, having both only on special occasions.
MMM
I have a set of measuring spoons get frequent use - tbsp and tsp turn up in most recipes. Measuring jug is only ever for liquids.
I have never heard it used here. Hard tack can be used in sailing - to take a hard tack to port/starboard, and as a difficult task.
EDIT: Part of me wants to say Captain Haddock in Tintin, but that could be way off.
I think that is what is referred to in novels like Hornblower, as "ship's biscuit". Generally full of weevils after it had been stored in the hold for maybe several years! I seem to remember a reference to the midshipmen knocking them on the table to make the weevils drop out, then using the weevils to bait traps for the rats (which they would then eat!)
Yes, that's the sort of thing I was thinking of.
That's bizarre. It's a staple in our gaff. First thing Boy#1 learnt to cook.
I tell a lie, I had Toad in The Hole at my mother in law's during the '90s. Unlike 'our Mam' and my late wife she was a terrible cook.
I do bangers and mash but generally the staples chez Gamaliel are stir fries, curries, risottos, paella and French style casseroles. I do Welsh stuff occasionally.
Regarding the use of cups, could you use any cup for a particular recipe? American recipes would seem to work on proportions of ingredients. Mind, I have a Winnie the Pooh cookbook which measures things in yoghurt pots.
By and large, my diet is fairly Mediterranean / continental but with traditional British roasts and such on Sundays.
I'm surprised at those who say they don't use scales. I go 'by eye' mostly but have always had a set of scales of one form or other and always use them on first time recipes. I do have a repertoire of stuff that seems to do itself without my having to think too hard, but I do like to try new things. Mainly I improvise with bits and bobs that are left over.
At school we had a set of measuring jugs - we even had gills (1/4 of a pint).
Re scales, I did get one given me, which I used for a while to measure out a scant 750g of dough to make identical loaves of bread. These are roughly 1.5 lb loaves. The battery went some years ago and I've not replaced.
After writing that, do you say "scant" when measuring, it means "up to, but not over".
Ah, yes, I’d forgotten doing all that, memories flooding back!
This is the first time I have ever heard a measuring cup referred to as a jug. I continue to learn quite a bit on this thread.
Also, "jug" can be used to refer to stealing or finessing.
We don't have a special name for plastic milk containers...just 'milk container'.
The second picture is what around here would be associated with moonshine, though it could be used for other things as well.
Here, growler is only used with regard to beer, specifically beer from craft breweries and bottle shops. A growler is a specific kind of glass jug for beer, which can be taken back to the brewery and refilled.
Formerly wealthy, Robert helped friends who could not repay a debt, resulting in his family's genteel poverty. A scholar and a minister, he served as a chaplain in the Union Army during the Civil War and was wounded in December 1862. His wife and daughters loved him very much, and missed him while he was away from home.
Also, this.
I searched images of jugs, which brought up both sorts, but also a few intermediate objects, which could be used for pouring out through a lip, as in British jugs, but with a narrowing of the top towards a spout - not narrow enought for a normal stopper, or to blow across. Interesting.
In UK English those would be called flagons.
Occasionally a flagon may have a handle and lip, in which case they have a hinged lid.
As for a growler, I understand that to refer to a small iceberg, such as holed the SS Titanic.
30 minutes of chat weekly about the use and origins of words (usually in British English), I really recommend it (though warning, they don't hold back in discussions of rude words also).
If you were, you might be "schoolboy sniggering" like me about all these mentions of growlers.